


Car Crash, Hot Flash

by boomerbird10



Series: Tiva/Tivali Drabbles [5]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Read at Your Own Risk, angsty af, this is Sofia's fault as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24459634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomerbird10/pseuds/boomerbird10
Summary: Two months, two phone calls, two continents, and two broken people.
Relationships: Ziva David/Anthony DiNozzo
Series: Tiva/Tivali Drabbles [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749793
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Car Crash, Hot Flash

"We all risk the chances of mistakes / cause we all need a little pain / Who knew that the absence of love is all it takes to change your mind / consider what you left behind / you've only walked into a / car crash, hot flash."

\- _Crow's Feet_ by The Accidentals

* * *

Two months.

Two months, that desk has been empty.

Two months since Tony returned from Israel, two months since he last spoke to his best friend.

He misses her, and it hurts.

Two months have passed when her desk phone rings. Tony looks up at it, bemused. The calls happened some in the beginning, before people got the message that Ziva David had permanently vacated the line. Then, slowly, the ringing stopped, which hurt on its own merits. It's almost like the world learned to forget her, just like Tony did, but… who could possibly be calling now?

It rings three times as Tony stairs at it, imagining an olive-skinned hand picking it up and a slightly accented voice answering, but that doesn't happen.

Nothing happens.

"You should get that."

Tony tears his eyes away from the phone to look at McGee, who jerks his head toward Ziva's desk—as if he could possibly be talking about anything else.

"No. No, it's probably a wrong number."

"You'll never know if you don't pick it up."

"McGee, I'm not going to—"

"You'll regret it if you don't."

Tony stops, because he more than understands regret right now. Robotically, he stands and does as the probie suggested, wishing for a curly-haired Israeli to yell at him for touching her things.

"Hello?"

"Hi, I'm looking for Ziva David, is she available?"

"No," Tony answers dully.

"Who am I speaking to?"

"Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo," he says automatically, but it's without his usual perkiness. He's ready to punch McGee, because there's only one voice that would have made answering this call worth it—and really, why would Ziva be calling her old desk?

"Oh, Mr. DiNozzo! You're her emergency contact, so I'm allowed to give you information. Can you take a message for her, please?"

"Yes," he stupidly agrees before thinking better of it. There's no telling when he'll talk to her again—or _if_ he'll ever talk to her again—so he has no business agreeing to pass on information. Too late now, though.

"Please remind her that her yearly dental check-up appointment is next Wednesday at 8:00."

It's so stupid—why the _hell_ should someone else's dentist appointment make it harder to breathe? "She won't make it," he tells the caller, sounding about as cheery as he feels. He clears his throat, trying to shake the tightness out of his voice.

"Then she should call to reschedule—"

"She moved," he says shortly. "Out of the country. She's not coming back. You might as well cancel this appointment and any others, because she's _gone_."

His voice is unnecessarily harsh by the end, snapping at the poor receptionist who hasn't done anything wrong, and he slams the receiver down into its cradle angrily. "Don't ever tell me to answer her phone again, McGee," he snarls at Tim, whose face is infuriatingly apologetic and sympathetic.

How fucking _dare_ he pretend to understand how this feels?

Tony sinks down into his desk chair and rubs his hands roughly over his face, trying to scrub the ever-present image of Ziva from his retinas. It doesn't matter how long it's been since her final exit from the bullpen, because he still pictures her there behind her desk. She's always laughing in his mind's eye, an all-too-familiar expression on her features—it's the expression of someone who feels reluctantly charmed by Tony's antics. Ziva seems so real when he imagines her that if he closes his eyes, he can almost convince himself that the past two months were just a painful dream, and that's not healthy.

He misses her, and he'd been doing a good job of getting her out of his mind.

It's awful what one fucking phone call can do.

* * *

Six thousand miles and seven time zones away, Ziva sits on her front porch swing at the old farmhouse, her knees tucked up against her chest as she sips chamomile tea. Her hair is chaotic, unbound, framing a face that has lost weight over the last two months.

Two _months_.

Those months haven't been easy. In fact, they've been entirely hellish. It's been two months of solitude, two months of no contact, two months without everyone she loves. It's been two months of fighting the current and fighting the urge to just swim down. Worst, though, is that it's been two months without Tony.

She misses him, and it hurts.

She's startled out of her musings by the shrill sound of her telephone ringing inside, and after a short debate with herself, she rises to answer it. It hasn't rung in two months, probably because she has kept it switched off most of the time. Today, however, she's expecting a call. It's time to bite the bullet.

"Ziva David," she answers automatically. Her voice sounds strange, emotionless and rusty from disuse. She can't remember the last time she said a word out loud—it certainly wasn't today. Maybe last week?

"Ms. David, this is Dr. Levitz. I'm calling to discuss your recent appointment. Do you have time to speak with me?"

Ziva David has nothing _but_ time these days. "Yes," she replies, quiet and tired.

Quickly, the doctor goes through the motions of confirming that Ziva is who she says she is, and then she finally gets to the bottom of why she's calling. "Most of the tests from your physical came back normal, as expected—you are in very good shape. There was hCG in your blood, though." Before Ziva can interrupt to ask what that indicates, the doctor continues. "That means that you are pregnant. Judging by the levels in your blood, you are about eight weeks into the pregnancy, but we will confirm that later when you have your first prenatal appointment. Congratulations!"

Ziva, numb, doesn't answer.

"Ms. David, are you still there?"

"Yes," she manages.

"I will give you some time to think, but please call my office at your earliest convenience to schedule a follow-up appointment."

"Thank you."

Without saying anything else or waiting for the doctor to reply, Ziva ends the call robotically. She's _pregnant_.

There's only one possibility for the baby's father, only one person she's slept with in a long time. That man is on another continent, so very far away… Because of the emotional distance between them and the strain of months of silence, however, he might as well be all the way on another planet.

Ziva has never felt so alone.

She rests a hand on her abdomen, reminding herself that apparently, she _isn't_ alone. In fact, she won't be alone for the next eighteen years. In all the ways that matter, though, she's more solitary than she's ever been in her life. This is something meant to be shared between two people—meant to be _celebrated_ by two people.

How can she celebrate, though, when she can't even tell Tony? And how can she tell him after two _fucking_ months of radio silence? When she knows damn well that she broke both of their hearts by sending him home on that plane without her?

Her eyes sting with the onset of bitter tears. A pregnancy… it's not what she asked for; it's not what she wanted. Life already felt difficult, but now it feels impossible.

She can't stop picturing Tony's face, though. He's always smiling in her mind's eye, even today. She likes to remember him that way, not the way he was in Israel. If she thinks too hard about his grieving beard when he couldn't be bothered to shave, his breaking voice as he tried his damnedest to convince her to leave with him, the expression on his face as they broke their kiss before he got on the plane… she'll break.

She misses him, and she'd been doing a good job of getting him out of her head.

It's awful what one fucking phone call can do.


End file.
